New camera

I finally bought myself a camera! I've been using the 3.2 megapixel (mp) camera on my handphone. I'm not a photographer and have no interest in becoming one. I was just looking for a basic camera.Budget: SG$250 (too low?? we shall see...)Functions required: Not too fat or heavy, basic video recording

Initially I wanted to go the Courts sale at Expo or Harvey Norman warehouse sale but I didn't feel like jostling with the crowd and queuing too long to pay. I saw a post at a forum saying that the queue was 90-people long! I guess I've turned into one of those people who would rather pay a little bit more to shop in comfort. Besides, I met up with my friend who came from overseas along Orchard Road so it was more convenient to shop in town.

I saw a slim-looking 8mp Olympus FE360 selling for $225 that comes with a 2GB memory card at Best Denki. It seemed like a pretty good buy but I thought I'd better look at other cameras.

There was a promotion at Challenger at Funan Centre for the 10m pixel Sony DSC S950 at $279. The promoter said that it was sold out and recommended me some other models. I couldn't find anything else within my budget (except for Samsung, which I won't even consider) so the promoter said that he will try to look for it in the storeroom. 5 minutes later he returned with a unit and said it was the last piece. I found it a little bit too fat for my liking and it was over my budget. The promoter said that it's hard to find any 10mp camera for that price. I don't need 10mp anyway so I thanked him for his effort and said I would give it some thought. Maybe it say that the model on promotion is sold out and then try to sell more expensive models, if all fails, then act like they put in alot of effort to try to find the very last unit in the store to make customers feel obliged to buy it.

I took the escalator down and saw a shop selling 8.2mp Fuji J15 camera for $149. It looked too good to be true - I thought it must be a chunky-looking and heavy model. I requested to see the camera. I was pleasantly surprised to see that it was slim enough and lightweight. And for $149, it's a steal! The catch was it didn't come with a memory card and I have the option of purchasing a 4GB card and a mini tripod at $19 but I thought the total price of $168 was still a very good deal.

Had I bought the Sony, I would have paid $111 more just to get 10mp! Sometimes I pay a little more for the "nice to have" extras but in this case I think it's not worth it at all! Besides, it feels great finding something that I like at $82 below my budget!